Chapter Forty-One
COOPER
“You’re too late,” Maxwell bluffed. “Cooper took the girl away after Lacey tried to kidnap her. They’re long gone by now.”
Another negligent flick of Tsepov’s wrist. Another shot to the arm that sent my father staggering before he slumped over the kitchen island.
“Lie. It’s a shame Lacey couldn’t get me the girl.” A lazy shrug. “It was worth a try. Your wife could be very accommodating when she wanted to be. If she wasn’t an addict I might have had more use for her.”
Maxwell’s breathing was ragged, but he kept his mouth shut.
“My men have been watching the building, Maxwell. I know the girl is here. They’ll find her and her pretty little keeper. Then we leave. All of us. You’ll give me the money and I’ll keep the woman and child as interest.”
“Not going to happen,” my father hissed.
“Or,” Andrei said, raising his weapon slowly and aiming it at Maxwell’s chest, “I kill you now, take the woman and child, and kill every one of your sons, their women, and your wife. Choose.”
I couldn’t let it register that he was talking about taking Alice. Couldn’t allow the threat to sink in. I had one job. To stop these men. If I could do that, I could save all of us.
I drew in a slow, deep breath. Alice. I wouldn’t lose Alice.
I’d wait for my opening, and I’d take it.
I’d get us out of this.
Get us out or die trying.
Maxwell forced himself mostly upright, the hand holding his weapon still tucked behind his back. He wasn’t fooling anyone, but at least he was still armed.
Don’t move, I silently warned. Don’t shoot. Hold the fucking line.
Maybe he heard my furious thoughts. Maybe it took everything he had to stay upright. Whatever the reason was, Maxwell didn’t move.
Tsepov waggled his gun at Maxwell. “Choose, or I choose for you.”
Maxwell cleared his throat. I shifted position, sliding an inch to the side, losing my cover just enough to put all three figures in the foyer in my sights.
A flash of movement at the door caught my eye.
Griffen. Coming in low, weapon raised, he took in the scene in an instant. His eyes met mine.
After over a decade of friendship and way too many hours together in the field, I didn’t have to say a word.
I drew a bead on the goon to Tsepov’s right. Griffen took the goon on the left. As one, we fired.
The goons dropped like stones and the world erupted in gunfire.
Tsepov pulled the trigger of his weapon over and over.
Shots from my left—Maxwell returning fire.
Pounding feet came down the hall, and a flood of goons erupted into the open space between the kitchen and foyer shooting at anything that moved.
A thud on the other side of the kitchen. A hammer blow to my chest. I fell back, sucking in a choked breath.
Relief as I realized my lungs were working. A regular bullet then. If one of the AR’s had hit me, I’d be drowning in my own blood by now.
I rolled, coming to my knees and looking through the kitchen and the foyer. Griffen was the only one on his feet, leaning against the wall on the far side of the foyer, a blossom of red spreading across his right shoulder.
Fuck. Fuck. The blood was spreading too fast. In the movies, a shoulder wound is no big deal. That’s bullshit. The shoulder has more than one major artery. A bullet in the wrong place can cause bleed-out in minutes.
Griffen sagged, sliding down the wall, a tide of blood staining his arm.
Fucking fuck.
I had to get an ambulance or he was going to die. My father was probably already gone.
More footsteps coming from the back of my apartment. On my feet, I raised my weapon, ready to make my last stand. I thought of Alice, prayed she was still locked in the safe room, that she’d be okay until the FBI could get her out.
I had time for the fleeting wish that I hadn’t waited so long to make her mine.
I love you, I thought, holding that love close as I aimed my Walther at the end of the hall and prepared to pull the trigger.
I fired once. Twice. Tsepov’s goons dropped, one after the other. Pounding footsteps from the hall outside. My heart sank. I was trapped in between, couldn’t take them all.
This was it. I was done.
Backing up, I retreated into the kitchen until I could see both the shattered front door and the rest of Tsepov’s men coming down the hall. My arms were steady as I kept my weapon raised, but my heart was hollow. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.
The remains of the front door flew back. I swung my weapon to the foyer, finger tightening on the trigger. What I saw froze me in place. At least a dozen bodies flooded through the door, fanning out to cover the room. More feet thundered in the hall.
“Drop your weapon and get your hands up.”
I’d never been so glad to see those familiar navy-blue vests, those bright yellow letters emblazoned on the front. FBI.
About fucking time. Dizzy with relief, I lay my weapon on the floor in front of my feet and raised my hands over my head.
Agent Holley entered just behind his initial team. With a disgusted look at me, he said, “How many?”
“I don’t know. They tossed a smoke bomb. I couldn’t count how many got past me before the air cleared.”
Agent Holley gave a brusque nod and sent half of his men to clear the rest of the apartment. Surveying the bodies on the floor, he shook his head. “Paramedics are downstairs.”
“You going to shoot me if I move? I need to check Griffen. I think that shot to his shoulder nicked an artery.”
Crouching beside Tsepov, Holley felt for a pulse, shaking his head again. “Fine. Go.”
I had a fleeting thought for my father. A better son would have checked him first. I wasn’t that man.
My father had brought this on himself. Between the stab wound and the shots to his arm, he was beyond my help.
Griffen was here out of loyalty. Out of friendship. I wouldn’t pay that back with death.
I eased him down to lay flat on the floor.
There was too much blood. It had soaked into his shirt, his vest, so much that I couldn’t tell if he was bleeding heavily or bleeding out.
I yanked off my vest and pulled my shirt over my head, folding it into a pad and pressing it into his shoulder.
His eyes opened, clouded with pain and shock.
“Got hit, Coop.”
“Yeah, you did. Paramedics are coming up. Hold on for me.”
“You okay? Alice?”
“I’m fine. I’ll get Alice as soon as the paramedics get here.”
His breath coming fast, skin pale, he struggled to speak.
“Shut the fuck up. Just stay still and hold on.”
His head dropped back to the floor, eyes sliding shut, but he breathed, “Status?”
“Don’t fucking know. Looks like my dad is down. Tsepov and most of his guys are down.”
“Dead?” the word came out on a whisper.
“Maybe. Probably.”
I’d think about that in a minute. In this moment, for this breath and the next and the next, my only thought was to keep pressure on Griffen’s shoulder. To slow the flow of blood. To buy him another minute of life. Then another.
It was an eternity until I was pushed aside by the paramedics. They swarmed Griffen, stabilizing the wound with a pressure dressing before loading him on a gurney and racing for the door.
He disappeared from sight before I got to my feet. Turning, I saw a team leaning over Tsepov, another around my father. The team working on my father moved with urgency. The one by Tsepov, not so much.
Tsepov was dead.
Agent Holley had lost his target. He’d be pissed, but all I felt was relief. It was over, the cost of ending it far too high.
The paramedics with my father pushed his gurney through the door as quickly as they’d moved with Griffen.
He was alive. For now. I wanted to follow them to the hospital.
I couldn’t go. Not yet. Alice and Petra were here, along with the people I’d put on the perimeter.
I had to secure the building and my people, get Alice and Petra out before I could go to the hospital. Time to call in the cavalry.
Agent Holley hung up the phone as I approached. “I sent two men to follow your father. You on your way?”
“As soon as I settle things here. Griffen said I have people down outside.”
Holley gave a sober nod. “My team is securing the building, called more paramedics. So far, no fatalities, but two are critical.”
No fatalities was good. Better than I’d expected. “Alice and Petra—my little sister—are here. I need to get them somewhere safe.”
“Since when do you have a sister?” Holley asked, surprise chasing the somber expression from his face.
“Since my father showed up at my door with her tagging along. I’ll fill you in later. She’ll stay with Alice and me. I don’t want either of them to see this.”
“You have a safe room in here somewhere?” Holley asked. “I know it’s not at the end of the hall since the door Tsepov’s idiot men were cutting open leads to the back stairwell.”
Relief flooded through me. They’d had that torch back there for too long.
“Thank God. It’s more of a storage room than a safe room, but it was the best I could do on short notice. Of all the things I planned for, my father letting Tsepov in wasn’t on the list.”
Holley shook his head. With my father’s life hanging by a thin thread, neither of us wanted to say what we were thinking. He was a liar and a criminal, but he was still my father.
“I can free up two men if you can add one of yours,” Holley said. “Put Alice and the girl with your brother’s families. If they’re all in one place they’ll be easier to secure until we’re sure we got all of Tsepov’s people. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
“I’d appreciate the extra men. Until we know about Griffen and my father—”
“I know. Make your calls, we’ll get Alice and the girl out of here, and then you and your brothers can get to the hospital.” I was thinking about who to wake up first when he said, “I think Sawyer will pull through.”
“But not my father?” I couldn’t help asking.
Holley’s face was expressionless as he said, “He should have taken his chances with prison.”
My throat closed, I nodded in agreement.
Fucking Maxwell. So determined not to spend a minute in jail, he’d almost killed us all.
Raising my phone, I turned and headed for my bedroom.
We weren’t coming back here for a while.
Alice and Petra would need clothes. I grabbed one of Alice’s duffel bags and started to fill it from her side of the closet as I made my calls.
First on my list was Knox. After Tsepov’s attack weeks ago he’d upgraded every aspect of his security. No one was getting near his place without him knowing. Everyone was safest there.
Knox’s voice was as clear and abrupt as if he’d been wide awake.
“I'm sending Alice and Petra to you,” I said, without preamble. I filled him in on the rest and hung up. Knox would take care of calling Axel and Evers.
Done with packing for Alice, I moved to Petra’s room. She was more complicated, and I didn’t have time to consider everything she’d need. Some clothes and pull-ups would get her through the next few days. Whatever I forgot we’d get later.
Next on my list was Riley Flynn. I needed him here to coordinate what remained of the team, then at Knox’s house watching the women and kids. My last call was to Lucas Jackson. He might be our resident hacker, but he was a one-man army, six feet, seven inches of deadly force.
“Forget Knox’s place,” he said the second I laid out my plan.
“Take them to Winters House. I’ll call Aiden.
He’ll want to know about your father and Griffen anyway.
Tsepov’s men won’t think to look for them there, and Aiden never downgraded the added security we put in back when Annalise came home.
Motion sensors, floodlights, it’s all still up. ”
I was rattled or I would have thought of it myself. The Winters were as good as family, but they were also one of the wealthiest families in the country.
Winters House was less a house than an estate. The place was huge, in the center of ten acres, almost impossible for any of Tsepov’s men to sneak up on, especially after the way we’d jacked up their security when Annalise Winters had come home with her stalker on her heels.
On top of the location and the security, Gage Winters was former special forces. If he hadn’t gone to work for the family corporation I would have recruited him for my own team.
“Good idea. Call Aiden and set it up. Update Riley. We’ll meet you there.”
I sent a quick text to fill my brothers in on the change in plans and shoved my phone in my pocket, heading down the hall for Alice.
I opened the door to the storage room and froze, looking straight into the barrel of a Walther PK identical to the one I’d left on the floor of the kitchen.
Alice stood in a perfect stance, legs spread, arms raised, the weapon steady as a rock. Petra was curled up on the carpet behind her, fast asleep. I was so relieved to see my girls in one piece my chest hurt.
Without lowering her gun, Alice asked, “Everything okay?”
“Okay? No. But we’re safe. Agent Holley's here. I need to get to the hospital.”
Alice lowered her weapon as her eyes turned dark. “Who?”
“My father and Griffen.”
She swore under her breath.
“The FBI will take you and Petra to Winters House. Summer, Emma, and Lily will meet you there. I got your stuff together.”
I held up the duffel and she took it, face clouded with worry.
Taking the Walther, I set it in the gun safe before I cupped her face in my hands and kissed her. Just once, the briefest meeting of lips. There was never any time.
Later. I hoped there would be all the time in the world later. Time to tell her how I felt. What I needed. What I wanted. Time for everything.
Griffen and my father might already be dead.
I had to get to the hospital.
I let her go, cold settling around me as I moved away.
I said the only thing I could, the thing I'd said only once before.
“I love you, Alice.”
Then I turned and raced for my car.